[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 149 (Thursday, November 10, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12684-S12685]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. BURR:
  S. 1991. A bill to amend title 38, United States Code, to establish a 
financial assistance program to facilitate the provision of supportive 
services for very low-income veteran families in permanent housing, and 
for other purposes; to the Committee on Veterans' Affairs.
  Mr. BURR. Mr. President, I rise today to honor our Nation's veterans 
for their service and their sacrifice. We will celebrate Veterans Day 
tomorrow, and I am proud of the improvements we have made in providing 
benefits and care to our country's heroes.
  In the past 10 years, since I first came to Congress, the veterans 
budget has increased by 77 percent, an annual average increase of over 
7 percent. The VA's health care budget has increased over 85 percent 
during this time. We have also enacted a fix to the concurrent receipt 
problem and made groundbreaking progress with computerized health 
records at the Veterans Department. I am proud of these efforts, but I 
certainly understand the need to do more to stay ahead of the curve.
  I also want to detail the recent growth in the veterans population in 
North Carolina. Our State's veteran population has increased by over 
100,000, to 780,000 veterans since 1980.
  This growth rate comes at a time when the number of veterans in the 
United States is decreasing. Veterans are moving to the State because 
many of them were stationed there while on active duty, and they have 
moved back because of the quality of life in North Carolina.
  I have two bills I have introduced today that I believe will improve 
the services we currently provide to our veterans. The first is the 
Services to Prevent Veterans Homelessness Act which makes grants to 
nonprofit and faith-based organizations to provide services to 
extremely low-income veterans who are in permanent housing. The goal is 
to keep them from becoming homeless. The services provided for in this 
bill--from vocational counseling and personal finance planning to 
health and rehabilitation--were designed to address the root causes of 
homelessness.
  The VA estimates on any given night as many as 200,000 veterans are 
homeless and as many as 400,000 are homeless at some point during the 
year. We also know that 45 percent of the homeless veterans have a 
mental illness, and 50 percent have some sort of addiction.
  The cost of this bill is $25 million annually, a small sum to help 
the poorest of our veterans. In North Carolina alone, over 43,000 
veterans live below the poverty line. This bill would allow the VA to 
partner with nonprofits in order to help poor veterans escape the root 
causes of homelessness. I urge the Senate to consider whether we are 
doing enough on this issue. More importantly, I invite my colleagues to 
study this bill and to become a cosponsor.
  Next, I introduced the Veterans Outreach Improvement Act which 
authorizes the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to partner with State and 
local governments for outreach to veterans. This bill provides grants 
to State veterans agencies and county veterans service offices to help 
them with outreach and claims development and to provide education and 
training of officers. The bill would also authorize $25 million 
annually for this outreach program.
  County veterans service officers are charged with assisting veterans 
and their dependents in seeking benefits as a supplement to the work 
being performed by the Department of Veterans Affairs. They are 
overseen by the Division of Veterans Affairs in North Carolina and 
receive accreditation from organizations approved by the Secretary of 
Veterans Affairs. Many veterans need assistance in filing claims in 
order to make sure that the claim is accurate and complete. County 
veterans service officers and officials from State veterans agencies 
are often the officials who can actually sit down face to face with a 
veteran to develop a claim and to send it to the VA. This bill makes 
the VA a partner in that outreach process.
  On the eve of Veterans Day this year, I join my colleagues in 
honoring veterans across this country for their heroic service to our 
Nation.

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